Africa

The following document on sub-Saharan Africa was initially drafted
in December 2015 and finalised after discussion and amendment at the
CWI’s 11th World Congress held in January 2016.

The very successful week-long meeting was attended by CWI comrades
from 34 countries, with delegates and visitors from east and west Europe
and Russia, Africa, all parts of Asia, North and Latin America,
Australia and the Middle East.

socialistworld.net

Africa stands before a new period of mass turmoil and revolutionary
struggle. Already recent years have witnessed the overthrow of long
standing dictatorial or authoritarian regimes as in Tunisia, Egypt and,
more recently, the Burkina Faso revolution, protests against attempts to
prolong unpopular leaders’ tenure in office as in Burundi, movements
against oppression and austerity in Sudan and elsewhere, workers’
strikes to win concessions as in Kenya and South Africa and struggles to
win positive reforms like the recent massive student anti-fee movement
in South Africa. Even though in Burkina Faso Kaboré, a former prime
minister in the Compaoré regime, has now been elected president this is
not the end of the revolution. Workers and youth, many of whom are being
radicalised by the left wing legacy of Thomas Sankara’s rule, would have
drawn confidence from Compaoré’s overthrow and the defeat of the
September 2015 attempted counter-coup and will not accept a simple
re-imposition of anything reminiscent of the old regime. While, in
Burundi, Nkurunziza succeeded in being re-elected for a third
presidential term this election has not ended the protests and unrest
which has killed hundreds. A civil war is not ruled out in that country.

The worsening economy will, in many countries, sharpen the already
burning issue of corruption, especially the question of where did the
money earned in the prosperous years go? The victory of presidential
candidates popularly seen as “non-corrupt” in Nigeria and Tanzania
reflect this. Such individuals may have a period of grace before they
are faced with demands from below but the masses’ expectations cannot be
easily ignored.

However implicit in countries like Burundi is the danger of
disintegration along ethnic, religious and national fault lines if the
working class does not come to lead a united struggle for change and
breaking with capitalism. Much international attention has been given to
the growth of Boko Haram’s growth has captured much attention,
particularly after the kidnapping of over 200 Chibok schoolgirls in 2014
and its expansion beyond Nigeria. But it is important to remember that
it did not dare to carry out any attacks during Nigeria’s biggest ever
mass movement, the mighty January 2012 anti-fuel hike protests and
general strike.

However, in the absence of the working class leading the mass of the
population in struggle or where struggles have been defeated, reaction
and counter-revolution can take the form of the continuing ethnic,
religious and national conflicts seen in west Africa with Boko Haram,
the renewed fighting around the eastern borders of Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC) and Great Lakes, Southern Sudan, east Africa as well
as with Boko Haram. Generally these conflicts do not limit themselves to
the colonial drawn boundaries, something seen in the growing Islamist
insurgency around the southern edge of the Sahara and in east Africa.

Clashes between rival national ruling classes also continue, although
not currently on the scale of “Africa’s World War”, the conflict in
central Africa sparked off by the 1994 killing of 800,000 Tutsis in
Rwanda in which between four to five million perished. Nevertheless all
these wars have resulted in 10,000s of causalities and millions of
refugees.

The limits and reality of “Africa rising”

These events are taking place as Africa is gripped by deepening, turmoil
as it faces a slowing world economy, a collapse in many raw material
prices, climate change and rapid population growth. While a very few
countries, like Kenya, have temporality gained from falling fuel prices
they are still at the mercy of the unstable international economy.
Generally the worsening economic situation heralds falling standards and
less hope for the future. In many countries this will sharpen the
already burning question of what has happened to the vast resources in
the continent, particularly in countries like Nigeria that have earned
petrol dollars. Many of the recent movements against sitting leaders
have been driven by a burning desire to oust corrupt rulers.

The world economic slowdown, and in particular the plunging prices of
raw materials, is already hitting the continent hard and dramatically
pushing a series of countries into crisis. While world interest rates
are still low, falling export revenues are threatening to open up a new
debt crisis. The World Bank and IMF still expect Africa’s 2015 economic
growth to be around 3.7%, the lowest since 2009, and below some
estimates of the population growth. In some countries like Nigeria
population growth will mean that GDP per capita will fall.

Rapid population growth, alongside climate change and in some areas the
spread of desert, is adding to Africa’s volatile mix. The continent has
a booming, youthful population predicted to increase from around 1
billion now to 2 billion by 2050 and 4 billion by the end of this
century. Along with this there is also rapid urbanisation, currently
around 40% of Africans live in urban areas and this is predicted by the
UN to rise to 60% by 2050. A century ago of all African cities only
Cairo had a population of over a million, now there are 50 with at least
that number and the UN expects a further 43 to cross the million person
mark by 2030. Lagos is currently the largest with about 21 million,
making it, jointly with three others, the fourth biggest city in the
world. Such ‘megacities’ can start to develop their own separate
identities and increasing numbers of Lagos’ inhabitants see themselves
as Lagosians, although that does not mean that it is immune from ethnic
or religious tensions.

While naturally there are differences between situations in each country
generally the recent claims that on a capitalist basis Africa is
“rising” have been shown to be superficial and temporary. Even
pro-capitalists have been forced to accept that the economic “progress
made earlier this century was largely driven by windfall gains from high
commodity prices” (Financial Times, October 27, 2015), and now that has
been undermined.

This new slowdown is undermining the hopes of millions, especially in
countries like Ghana, that new found raw material wealth would
fundamentally change the lives of themselves and their families. There
were always strong elements of propaganda in the pro-capitalists’ claims
that the African middle class had rapidly expanded, claims often based
on a very basic, low expectation of what qualified as “middle class”.
Thus in 2014 the African Development Bank (AfDB) argued that the number
of “middle class” Africans had risen from 115 million in 1980 to 326
million in 2010. However its definitions were very modest to say the
least, its total was made up what it called a “floating class” of 200
million living on between $2 and $4 a day, an 82 million strong “lower
middle” getting between $4 and $10 a day and a “middle class” on $10 to
$20 a day.

The common highlighting of the explosion of mobile phone ownership does
not, for the vast majority, mean an immediate increase in income and
wealth. Giving the other side of the picture the UN Economic Commission
for Africa (UNECA) reported in late 2015 that the number of “poor
people” in Africa had increased from 291 million in 1990 to almost 389
million in 2012. A series of statistical GDP revisions to countries’ GDP
figures, like in Kenya and Nigeria, saw big increases but these were
largely on paper. Being told you were richer does not change living
standards particularly when, for instance, South Africa, the second
biggest economy on the continent, is one of the most unequal countries
in the world.

For a significant number of fortunate Africans an important part of
their income comes from remittances sent to them from family and friends
working overseas, a sum which is now formally around $40 billion a year,
before taking into account informal transfers. This is, of course, the
absolute opposite of the elite who smuggle their often ill-gotten wealth
out of the continent. While the absolute amount remitted is big for
countries like Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt, it is the smaller,
poorer countries that are more dependent on them as these transfers make
up a significant proportion of their GDP, maybe 40% in Somalia, 38% in
Eritrea, 26% in Liberia and 23% in Burundi. However economic slowdown in
the host countries and increased competition for work from newly arrived
migrants can both reduce what is sent back.

As in most capitalist nations in those African countries which saw
recent economic growth, like Angola and Mozambique, there was a massive
polarisation of wealth, usually with those elements close either to the
regimes, finance or international companies especially benefitting. The
end of the boom, however, hits workers and the poor hardest as they pay
the price for the new crisis. In 2013 the Angolan government funded 70%
of state spending through oil exports, but in 2015 this was halved to
37% and the state budget was cut by a quarter. This crisis has seen the
slashing of jobs and now basic goods are in short supply. Discontent is
brewing and protests have been met with increased repression by the
authoritarian MPLA regime. Angola is not alone, there are similar
situations developing in several other commodity exporting countries.

Despite all its human and natural resources the continent is still the
most underdeveloped and is more directly dominated by imperialism than
parts of Asia or Latin America. This, and the heavy preponderance of raw
material exports, is a key factor in the ruling classes’ looting of the
state and their “take the money and run” philosophy. The inability of
capitalism to develop Africa in a rounded way is seen in the general
trend of the local capitalists to invest in finance, property or in
products that can be immediately sold locally like foodstuffs, building
materials, rather than longer term investments that would bring them
into competition with the international monopolies. They generally are
compradors, local allies and agents of imperialism, not seriously trying
to develop their own nation state, instead having a rentier or client
character. Usually raw material extraction is, at best, done in
collaboration with foreign investors. In some cases, like textiles,
local industries have been almost completely undermined by Chinese and
other Asian based competition. Even when there is some development of
local facilities it is usually limited to assembly plants, for example
of CKD (Completely Knocked Down) vehicle kits which are put together
locally with only minimal local content. The African ruling classes’
lack of confidence in developing their own countries, and looting, is
shown in the $ 50 billion annual illicit outflow of funds from the
continent.

While now the commodity-driven new ‘scramble for Africa’ has hit a
serious setback, rival imperialisms remain set on expanding in Africa in
the medium-to-long term. In a world of anaemic growth, Africa’s riches
in mineral, land and cheap labour power, along with its growing
population of possible consumers mean the continent, despite the poverty
of the majority of its inhabitants, will continue to attract some of the
capitalists who are desperately short on profitable avenues for
investment and sales. This imperialist attraction to Africa will not
lead to the continent ‘rising’ as a saviour of world trade or end
poverty. While the recent commodity boom-and-bust did not result in any
leap in industrialisation, it sharpened class contradictions, as most of
the benefit went to imperialism and their local allies.

New rivalries in Africa, economic and strategic

Recent years have seen new foreign interventions in Africa. Most have
been by Britain and France, the former major colonial powers, or under
the AU or UN flag. While often taking place under a “humanitarian”
banner of ending civil wars or dealing with disasters like Ebola, they
are generally aimed at securing friendly, pro-capitalist governments and
investors’ interests. However this does not mean that these ruling
classes do not seek to promote their own national interests, sometimes
at the expense of their rival imperialists. The result is continuing
competition between the rival imperialist powers for influence and
profit. Thus as part of its own policy of increasing involvement in
Africa the German government announced, after the November 2015 terror
attack in Paris and as “help for France”, a large increase in German
soldiers based in Mali where French troops have been since 2013 fighting
Toureg and Islamist groups.

At the same time, the US and most recently China, have also been
strengthening their positions in Africa. The US has expanded its
military position with now 20 military missions in the continent, three
drone bases and a major military base in Djibouti. The formation in 2007
of Africom (United States Africa Command), significantly headquartered
in Germany not in Africa, marked a stepping up of US military activity
in the continent as it brought under its wing specifically designated
“African” US army, air force, marine and naval units.

Chinese influence has expanded on the basis of a rapid growth of trade
and investment. In 1990 half of all African trade was with Europe, but
by 2008 it was 28%, while trade with Asia had doubled to equal the
European total. Between 2000 and 2014 Chinese trade with Africa grew
from about $10 billion to $222 billion and since 2009 China has been the
continent’s top trading partner.

Overwhelmingly China sells manufactured goods and chemicals to Africa at
the same time as it is also deeply engaged in construction. The many
Chinese-funded large-scale infrastructure development projects, such as
roads, dams, ports and railways, serve multiple purposes for the Chinese
regime and corporations – most immediately, they facilitate extraction
of the raw material, but they also provide some escape from the problems
of the domestic construction sector. The allegedly ’progressive’
development offered by China also serves to strengthen political bonds
to African regimes.

While there has been Chinese investment in production in Africa to take
advantage of the lower wages, and sell to the local market, this has
been limited. More than 85% of Chinese imports from Africa are
commodities and raw materials. However now the value of these imports to
China is falling, partly because of lower prices and also because of the
slowdown in the Chinese economy is reducing demand.

In the first 9 months of 2015 there was an annualised 17% fall in the
volume of Chinese iron ore imports from Africa, The Chinese slowdown has
also cut back Chinese loans for African infrastructure projects. While
still remaining Africa’s largest single lender, the total fell to $3.1
billion in 2014 compared to an average of $13.9 billion annually between
2011 and 2013. At the December 2015 China-Africa summit held in
Johannesburg China pledged a further $60 billion for Africa but how much
of this is “new” money or repeating past promises is not clear.

In Africa there is a mixed attitude towards the Chinese investment and
trade. Development projects are welcomed by African regimes but there is
concern due to the impact of Chinese competition on local industries
like textiles, the generally harsh conditions in Chinese owned local
businesses and the importation of Chinese workers to work on projects.

The rivalry between the world’s powers in Africa is not only economic.
There is a developing contest for strategic influence. Djibouti is
getting considerable income from hosting foreign military forces and now
China is joining France, Japan and the US, in establishing a permanent
military presence there, in this case a naval “support facility”. While
China is stating that this will not be the same kind of bases that
France and the US have, it will be China’s first ever military facility
in any foreign country.

A further reason for the European powers’ renewed interest in Africa is
how to stop, or at least severely limit, the flow of refugees and
migrants from or via Africa to Europe.

Struggles against repression

The fact is that the world economic situation is worsening the situation
of tens of millions after most only very partially benefitted from the
boom times. The countries first hit are those dependent on raw material
exports, others like oil importing Kenya benefited from falling prices
etc. But Kenya, and others, is not immune from the impact of a slowing
world economy and a fall in its currency’s value which is starting to
fuel inflation in Kenya.

Generally Africa has no stable capitalist democracies. Most have limited
democratic rights and varying degrees of bonapartism in the state
structures. Even in South Africa, relatively the most stable, Zuma has
sort to promote and lean upon unelected tribal chiefs while the police,
as brutally displayed in Marikana, can be just as repressive as under
Apartheid rule. The fundamental reason for this is that the weakness of
capitalism in Africa does not allow consistent improvements in living
standards and maintenance of democratic rights to last as long as they
can in the major imperialist countries. This means that, even where mass
pressure and struggle has won reforms and concessions, these gains can
soon come under attack and be undermined, if not reversed.

Notwithstanding the example of “peaceful” transfer of power in Nigeria’s
election last year, dictatorial and “sit-tight” rule still dominate
Africa. On the whole, there are at least 10 brutal dictators on the
continent who between them have spent nearly three centuries in power.
One of them, 91-year old Robert Mugabe, is at 35 years in power one of
the world’s oldest and long-serving rulers. The recent constitutional
manoeuvre by Paul Kagame, ruler of Rwanda, who organized a referendum to
secure new terms that potentially could see him rule till 2034, add to
this growing list of sit-tight leaders. While the situation there is
still developing, suffice to note that this manoeuvre in a country with
a brutal past of genocide could constitute a tipping point for crisis in
the near future. The growing opposition to the attempts to extend the
often semi-disguised dictatorial rule of an elite are extremely
significant, but working people need their own independent movement to
ensure that one ruling clique is not replaced by a rival grouping.

Africa has seen waves of struggle, often movements in one country have
inspired revolts and revolutions in other countries. But without a
programme that draws the lessons from the past experiences of struggle,
both in Africa and globally, the gains have been temporary or partial at
best.

In the early 1990s, inspired by the South African struggle against the
Apartheid regime and what was seen as the ousting of totalitarian rule
in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, dictatorial or semi-dictatorial
regimes were overthrown or forced to retreat in a series of African
countries including Benin, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Côte
d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Madagascar, Malawi, Togo and Zambia. But
in all these cases, while some democratic rights were won and old
leaders replaced, their fundamental class structure was not changed. Not
all the struggles were successful, the mighty “June 12” movement in
Nigeria in 1993 and 1994 was ultimately defeated because those leading
the mass protests and general strike did not have a clear strategy to
overthrow military rule.

The “June 12” struggle was one of many examples in Africa of where
mighty movements and indeed revolutions did not achieve their objectives
or, if they did, the gains proved to be temporary. Generally this was
not because of the weakness of the working class and poor. While the
working class in African countries is still, despite rapid urbanisation,
a minority in society it has enormous potential to lead the mass of
society, particular the youth, the poor and the downtrodden. In many
countries when the working class and labour movement act they can draw
the broader downtrodden masses into action. The urban poor can struggle,
although it is decisively important how that struggle is organised and
particularly the role of socialists and the workers’ movement to help
the development of a collective consciousness that links their struggles
with a movement against capitalism. Youth, not only students and school
students but young people generally, can also play a decisive role in
helping stimulate and strengthen broader movements.

Programme – ending the legacy of Stalinism

However to secure a way out of the catastrophe facing the continent
struggle has to be organised around a programme of what to do. The
programme and method of the permanent revolution remains decisive in
Africa both in terms of the political programme dealing issues posed
within countries and internationally, where a successful revolution in
one country can have a huge effect on neighbouring countries, including
bigger ones.

For decades Stalinist ideas had dominated the left in many African
countries. On the one hand opposition to colonialism and imperialism
alongside the development of the Soviet Union, China and later Cuba, all
contributed to a popular support for “socialism”. These states were
widely seen as ‘allies’ in opposition to imperialism and its stooges on
the continent, something strengthened by the decisive role Cuban troops
played in helping defeat the Apartheid regime’s 1987/8 invasion of
Angola. This popular support was one factor during the “cold war”
enabling some African leaders to distance themselves from western
imperialism by playing off one world power against another. Those who
looked to either the Soviet Union or Maoist China adopted “socialist”
phraseology, although the measures they took did not fundamentally end
the capitalist character of their economies. However as their own
internal crises mounted the Stalinist states’ leaders became more and
more unwilling to take on supporting more states like they had with Cuba
since the early 1960s. Thus, in 1982, when Ghanaian left wingers within
Rawlings’ second military regime went to Moscow to seek economic support
they were told to ask the western powers.

In Africa, as in many other parts of the world, the collapse of the
Stalinist states from the end of the 1980s onwards resulted in a swing
to the right in the workers’ movement. In Africa it also meant the
undermining in many countries of the idea, albeit often in a distorted
form, of an alternative, “socialist”, path to development.

During its height Stalinism’s influence within the workers’ movement
paved the way for use of seemingly “Marxist” phraseology to justify
alliances that effectively subjugated the working class and poor to
political domination by so-called “progressive” bourgeois or petit
bourgeois politicians. This ‘stages theory’ resulted in a refusal to
build a movement aiming to rapidly break with capitalism because that
would have meant an end to the alliance with the “progressive”
capitalists. This approach, fundamentally the same as the Mensheviks in
the 1917 Russian Revolution and the exact opposite of the approach of
Lenin and the Bolsheviks, led to many lost opportunities, defeats and,
combined with the top-down methods of most Stalinist influenced leaders,
to stultifying the workers’ movement.

Although today Stalinism as an organised force is much, much weaker the
approach they defended of, fundamentally, subordinating the movement of
the workers and poor to alliances with pro-capitalist liberals and
reformers remains ever-present within the continent’s workers’ movement
and amongst some on the left. While there can be episodic joint action
with pro-capitalist elements on concrete issues like fighting reaction,
democratic rights, workplace issues etc. this cannot be at the expense
of striving to build a politically independent, socialist movement of
workers, the poor and youth aiming to change society. Marxists seek to
win support, like the Bolsheviks in 1917, for the programme of the
working class and poor coming to power, as opposed to the idea of
coalition with pro-capitalist forces to “defend the revolution” or to
“secure progress”; policies which safeguard capitalism and can open the
door to new periods of reaction unless challenged by a revolutionary
policy.

Especially in Africa a socialist programme cannot only deal with the
broad political and economic issues. The question of how to overcome
ethnic and religious divisions as, for example, seen in the recent Côte
d’Ivoire election, is a vital question alongside those of programme and
building a working class based movement.

The fact that the CWI has a base and a tradition in two of the key
African countries, Nigeria and South Africa, is of immense importance.
At the same time the start of CWI activity in Francophone and Arabic
speaking African nations over the past five years is a significant step
forward.

South Africa

The last three months of 2015 saw the ANC government subjected to the
most humiliating defeats of its twenty-one years in office; the first
inflicted on it by the magnificent October ‘Fees must fall’ student
uprising; the second in December by the capitalist class, taking
advantage of the generalised revulsion against the Zuma regime in
society. The early 2016 victories for the ‘outsourcing must fall’
movement were another retreat by the government in the face of
opposition, this time from the working class.

Prior to this the 2012 Marikana massacre was a turning point which still
echoes in South Africa. The shooting, with all its memories of the
Apartheid state, and the ANC leaders’ defence of the police action,
brutally marked how far the ANC had moved to the right. This development
is of key significance not just for South Africa but the entire
continent as South Africa is the most developed African country, with
the strongest organised working class and with, at this time, the most
developed socialist consciousness.

Like other pro-capitalist leaders of national liberation movements the
ANC leaders used the victory over the Apartheid regime to try, generally
with success, to become part of the ruling class.

This inevitably brought them into conflict with their base especially
because the bedrock of the ANC’s struggle from the mid-1970s onwards had
been the South African working class and youth.

This struggle saw the building of what was one of the world’s strongest
and most radical revolutionary movements. Large numbers of the activists
within this movement adopted socialist ideas in what was correctly seen
as not just a struggle for democratic rights, but one for social
liberation.

However, while the Apartheid regime was defeated, capitalism was
stabilised on the basis of the then tremendous authority of Mandela and
ANC, the end of state racism, winning of democratic rights plus some
concessions. While already in the negotiations before his 1990 release
from prison Mandela had made clear that he was seeking democratic rights
and reforms but not the overthrow of capitalism, it took time before the
demands for more radical action were side lined, something enormously
aided by the huge enthusiasm of the ANC’s 1994 election victory and
Mandela’s subsequent election as president. The Cosatu and SACP leaders,
allied with the ANC in the ‘Triple Alliance’, played an important
supporting role in probably one of the last “classic” examples of the
misuse of quotations from Marx and Lenin to justify the Stalinist
‘stages theory’ that the working class movement should limit its
programme to building a modern capitalism before any idea of
overthrowing capitalism.

Although this was criticised by some on the left of the workers’
movement, for a whole period the ANC leaders were able to rely on mass
support while carrying out pro-capitalist polices.

But, even before Marikana, experience was beginning to undermine the
acceptance of this idea as, despite the ANC being in government, the old
power structure had barely changed despite the emergence of a few black
millionaires and a slightly larger black middle class. Large sections
still suffer poverty; officially unemployment is around 25% but in
reality more like 35% with around 50% of youth jobless. The 2011 census
showed that the average white family’s income was six times higher than
a black family’s. The London Guardian put it very mildly “ordinary South
Africans feel they have been short-changed”, many workers and youth
would put it far more sharply.

Already in 2007 this was reflected when the then sitting president Mbeki
was replaced as ANC’s 2009 presidential candidate by Zuma who then had
trade union and youth backing. Now the disappointment and anger with the
corrupt Zuma and his rotten regime is even deeper than it was with
Mbeki. There is the prospect that the ANC’s electoral support will,
despite its historic role, will soon formally fall below 50%. However,
while the ANC won over 62% in the 2014 election this has to be seen
against the background of a turnout of only 54% of all those eligible,
whether registered or not, to vote. In other words the ANC won the
support of around a third of South African adults.

Now the economy, one of the many hit by the Chinese slowdown, appears to
be staggering on the edge of recession. A doubling of government debt to
nearly 50% has placed the economy on the edge of a fiscal cliff. In the
previous recession in 2009 a million jobs were lost and were not
replaced in the slow recovery afterwards. The South African Reserve
Bank, having already increased interest rates incrementally, will in all
likelihood be forced to ratchet them up more drastically as the Rand,
the worst performer of all emerging market currencies, continues to
tank. Over the last year alone, the Rand has lost a third of its value
against the US$. The slowdown in China, South Africa’s biggest trading
partner, has impacted severely on an economy whose commodity exports
account for 60% of foreign exchange earnings. According to some
analysts, the metal and engineering industry could be wiped out in less
than six months, with as many as 200,000 jobs on the line. A declining
Rand and the worst drought since 1992 means South Africa will have to
import more than half of its maize needs, worsening the balance of
payments and budget deficit and increasing the risk of the credit rating
being reduced to junk. With 12m going to bed hungry every night, food
shortages and further price increases -- already doubled over the past
year – could lead to food riots. The turmoil around Zuma’s December 2015
attempt to install a more pliable finance minister and his subsequent
rapid retreat under fire from both the capitalists and ANC rivals has
weakened Zuma’s position and opened the way for serious attempts to
carry out more neo-liberal policies.

The experience of over twenty years of ANC government carrying out
pro-capitalist policies, especially Marikana and the corruption scandals
around Zuma, has led to tensions within the so-called “Triple Alliance”
and open divisions and splits within the trade unions, one result being
the expulsion from the Cosatu federation of the metalworkers, Numsa, the
largest South African union.

In this situation the idea of a workers’ party came to the fore. Already
in 1993, before the ANC’s 1994 election victory and reflecting the more
radical layers’ unease at the ANC leadership’s rightward development,
the fourth congress of the metalworkers’ union Numsa stated that workers
needed to be independent from the new government and called for the
working class to develop an independent programme on how to advance to
socialism. This, the congress declared, could take the form of a working
class party. However this decision remained a paper one for years as the
Numsa leaders continually refused to take concrete steps, even after
Marikana massacre. This also reflected that while the Numsa leadership
has broken politically with the South African Communist Party (SACP), it
is still tied to it ideologically and adheres to what amounts to a
‘two-stage’ conception of the revolution, of first building an advanced
capitalist economy before breaking with capitalism. The Numsa
leadership’s complaint is that the SACP has abandoned the ‘national
democratic revolution’ and that getting to socialism requires a
“radical” implementation of the Freedom Charter. But what they do not
see is that the pro-capitalist polices of the ANC government flows
precisely from the fact that they are working within the capitalist
system.

The continuing influence of the SACP’s traditions is reflected also in
the Numsa leadership’s determination to exercise complete control over
all structures and even ideas of the Movement for Socialism, United
Front and the workers’ party they pledged to create at their historic
special national congress in 2013 where they broke from the ANC, SACP
and Cosatu. After two years of procrastination the Numsa leadership may
have lost the opportunity to take the initiative to actually start to
build an independent workers’ alternative.

Especially after Marikana there were huge possibilities for a workers’
party, something which was seen in the initial response to the call for
and launch of WASP. However the Numsa leadership continued to make left
sounding statements but not acting, they rejected the offer that to
“take over” WASP. Instead they even refused to make any recommendation
on which way their 330,000 plus membership should vote in the May 2014
general election.

The potential for a workers’ party was reflected in national survey held
between February and March 2014 that found that a third of South
Africans definitely thought that “a new political party,” a workers’ or
labour party, “will assist with current problems facing SA”. Amongst the
fully employed the answers were 30% “definitely” and 39% “maybe”. Just
after Marikana a Cosatu financed survey of 2,000 shop stewards “found
that Cosatu shop stewards want nationalisation, they have no confidence
in the South African Communist Party, and they want Cosatu to form a
labour party.” (Daily Maverick, December 12, 2012) and 67% said they
would vote for such a party.

But, with a small cadre, WASP was unable to concretise that potential
and without an initiative from Numsa and other left unions Malema, the
former ANC youth leader, stepped into the vacuum and launch the Economic
Freedom Fighters (EFF) in July 2013, seven months after the initial
appeal to form WASP had been made.

Within months of being formed the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), with
a radical sounding programme, a history of (recent) opposition to Zuma
and, despite corruption allegations against Malema, won well over a
million votes (6.35 percent) and secured 25 of the 400 MPs in the May
2014 elections. While the EFF has made a big impact with its activities
within and outside parliament, there has been a marked shift to the
right in its programme with the EFF leaders substituting their demand
for expropriation and nationalisation with appeals to big business to
give workers 51% shares as an incentive to avoid strikes and discourage
demands for nationalisation. This reflects the current attempts of the
EFF leadership to adopt a more accommodating approach towards big
business and to position itself as a power-broker to prop-up the ANC or
any of its factions.

The ANC, despite being re-elected in 2014 with over 62% of the vote, has
not enjoyed stability. Partly this is due to divisions over who will be
elected as its new leader in 2017 and thereby would be likely to stand
as president in 2019. But more significant has been the movement of the
working class and recently the mass student anti-fees upsurge which
forced a rapid retreat by Zuma.

While South Africa has a magnificent radical tradition of struggle and
support for socialist ideas, and the largest trade union movement in
Africa, it is not immune from the dangers of reaction. The repeated
anti-migrant attacks, especially in 2008 and early 2015, are warnings.
Without a strong working class movement such national and ethnic
divisions could be exploited. Zuma himself has exploited his Zulu
origins and tried to promote the role of tribal chiefs. Without a class
alternative poverty can lead to scapegoating of “foreigners” or
“outsiders” as the culprits rather than the ruling class. Such anger can
not only directed against migrants from the rest of Africa, in some Cape
Town townships there are tensions between those born in the townships
and those from other parts of South Africa.

The key lies within the workers’ movement, but the Numsa and other left”
trade union leaders currently seem to remain unwilling to take serious
steps, for example it is unlikely that they will either sponsor or
support candidates in the forthcoming 2016 local elections. This will
pass the responsibility to forces like WASP to put forward a strategy
that combines building fighting campaigns and arguing for the formation
of a left, workers’ alternative which can include the best fighting
elements from the movement, including Numsa, the EFF and other forces.

Nigeria

Today the essence of Nigeria’s situation is the increasing impact of the
falling world oil price which is hitting the country, and particularly
the state sector, hard. Workers and pensioners in many states, plus
those working for the federal government, face months of wage and
benefit arrears. Amongst the population this is overwhelmingly blamed
upon the defeated Jonathan administration, particularly the rampant
corruption that stole much of the country’s export income during the
years of high oil prices. Buhari’s victory, Nigeria’s first ever
peaceful handover of office to a rival political party, was a decisive
popular call for change. The Buhari’s presidency is under contradictory
pressures including widespread popular hopes it will bring real change
and, on the opposite, pressures to carry our austerity measures. Indeed
Buhari’s election was largely based on the hope that this “modest”,
“incorruptible” ex-military ruler could make a real change. Initially
the Buhari administration’s main activity was its anti-corruption
campaign which included some high profile arrests.

Buhari’s first budget proposals made various promises of reforms based
upon borrowing more, but it is questionable how long such an approach
will last. However the economic crisis, along with the anti-corruption
campaign, is being used by key sectors of the ruling class and
government to prepare a neo-liberal offensive. Yet at the same time the
new Buhari regime is hesitating before implementing austerity measures
out of fear of provoking the working class and poor; the last attempt to
raise fuel prices in January 2012 failed in the face of the biggest mass
protest and general strike Nigeria has ever seen.

In addition to this unfolding economic emergency is Nigeria’s huge
population explosion. At the time of its independence from Britain in
1960 there were around 45 million Nigerians, now the number is
approaching 185 million. It is estimated that the population has grown
by 5.5 million in 2015 alone. This rapid growth is despite having West
Africa’s lowest life expectancy of 47 years of age. Approximately 44% of
Nigerians are under 14 years old and a further 19% are between the ages
of 15 and 24. About 52% (roughly 90 million) of Nigerians live in urban
areas but this does not indicate the size of the working class, current
estimates of numbers of unemployed or under-employed are around 50
million. Nevertheless the mass of the urban population supported and
some were involved in the huge January 2012 protests and general strike.
A new feature of the urban situation is the growth of gangs of young
teenagers upwards, which use force of numbers to carry out robberies and
even general looting of areas.

The small post-election improvement in electricity supplies did not stop
protests developing against what is popularly called “crazy billing”,
where the recently privatised electricity companies are imposing huge
‘standing charges’ (generally there are few meters) that assume
electricity has been supplied! They argue they need the money for
investment. In some cases bills for non-existent electricity are higher
than the house rent. CWI members in Lagos have played an important part
in these protests which may widen if the electricity companies proceed
with plans for huge price increases in 2016.

As has long been the case there is the question of whether there will be
new protests if the so-called “fuel subsidy” is removed. This has been a
longstanding issue, particularly because of the corruption in the oil
industry and low oil refining capacity industries which means that
Nigeria has to import, at world prices, most refined fuel products. The
last attempt at the start of 2012 resulted in the biggest revolt and
general strike that Nigeria has ever seen, a movement that began
spontaneously from below and eventually forced the then new, and more
right-wing, trade union leaders to call a general strike and then call
it off as soon as some minimum concessions were offered. While Buhari
himself seemed initially reluctant to go down the road of price rises,
he appointed a largely neo-liberal cabinet which is in favour of
removing the subsidy. They argue that now is the time to do it as, with
world oil prices low, any resulting price rise would be much smaller
than it would have been in 2012.

For many Nigerians the re-emergence, in November 2015, of widespread
fuel shortages is seen as part of a drive to raise the official fuel
price in the expectation that if regular oil supplies could be
guaranteed then it is possible that a smallish price rise would be
accepted as, in times of shortages, the black-market price is way above
the official one. And, sure enough, in mid-December the government,
testing out the level of opposition, proposed a 10 naira (5 US cents)
rise per litre.

But this rise was not mentioned when, at the end of December 2015, the
government finally unveiled a so-called “price modulation” policy, which
essentially allows fuel prices to respond to market forces. Clearly the
regime feared protests and so, to ensure this plan sold, the petroleum
ministry which is headed by President Buhari cleverly fixed the new
price of fuel very, very slightly, just 50 kobo (0.5 US cent), below the
previous official price. It is still unclear if this already means an
end to subsidy as a policy given that, at the same time, the minister of
state for petroleum promised that government would be prepared to step
in to ensure prices are stable. However, it seems government is on the
way to deregulating the oil sector and this manoeuvre is simply an
initial step to test reaction. Given the extremely low price of crude
oil, there is no logical reason why a litre of fuel should sell close to
N80 in an oil-producing country. In fact it is debatable whether, at
current rate of oil price, that government is presently paying anything
as subsidy on petroleum products.

The relief, if any, at the lower fuel price will be short-lived. On the
basis of lack of adequate local refining capacity and profit interest, a
rise in fuel price is to be expected in the long run especially if
situation in the crude oil market improves. Even now in many parts of
the country it is almost impossible to get fuel, especially kerosene, at
the official price with many forced to pay high black market rates. On a
capitalist basis, Now Nigeria is confronted with a paradox: Any increase
in the price of crude oil while a blessing for the state’s declining
revenue would in turn bring up sharply the price of petroleum products
for the populace.

Generally recent years have seen fewer mass struggles than before partly
because of a new, less combative trade union leadership. The first 12
years of this century saw a series of mass protests, 9 general strikes
took place and a further 4 general strike calls that were cancelled at
the last minute. Some of these general strikes began to pose the
question of power. However since the January 2012 strike the trade union
leaders have avoided taking generalised action, even on the continuing
question of the ongoing non-payment of the new minimum wage set back in
2011 and have only taken very limited, largely token action, on the
issue of wage and pension arrears. Most of the trade union leaders are
seeking to ally themselves with national and federal state-level
political leaders and so limit themselves to making occasional bold
statements but doing nothing. At this moment a key to reviving the trade
unions and beginning a serious struggle on the issues facing the
Nigerian working masses is the development of activity and pressure from
below.

Nevertheless it is significant that the government is ever fearful of a
new workers’ upsurge. Faced with mounting wage arrears the Federal
government at the end of August 2015 “bailed out” 27 of the 36 federal
states with loans to enable them to pay wages, albeit charging 9%
interest over 20 years.

But despite the August “bail out” the Nigerian media is reporting that
“over 26 states of the country are barely able to pay salaries of their
workers” while unemployment is rising, the economy slowing down and
inflation rising to officially nearly 10% as the result of 2014’s
currency devaluation. Partly as a result of this Buhari is, at present,
trying to resist a further devaluation.

Like most African countries Nigeria’s borders were set by imperialism
who decreed that around 250 religiously diverse nationalities and
ethnicities would be in one state whose name was invented by the first
British Governor’s wife. The consequent tensions have dominated since
Nigeria came into being in 1914 and now the national question is
starting to take a new turn. The warfare in the north-east is
continuing, and it is seemly unlikely that the government’s aim of
ending Boko Haram’s insurgency by the end of 2015 will be met. Already
over 13,000 have been killed and two million displaced by the fighting.
While Boko Haram has been extending its activities beyond Nigeria’s
borders the increasing randomness of some of its attacks has led to
speculation whether this is less of an offensive military strategy
rather than an attempt to hold onto the areas they control. Currently
Boko Haram is not active in the largely Christian south but if it
started attacking targets there sectarian tension could, without
decisive attack by the labour movement, quickly develop. The dangers of
sectarianism lurk all over the country, notwithstanding the growing
“mixed” population in urban areas, especially Lagos. A recent warning of
what can happen was the Boko Haram attack on a Shia Muslim procession in
the north followed by a disputed clash between the military and a Shia
group have increased sectarian tensions.

The end of 2015 has also seen the question of “Biafra”, the succession
of the Igbo dominated areas from Nigeria, come back onto the agenda. The
arrest and refusal, despite a court order, to release on bail a
well-known pro-Biafra activist sparked off a wave of large-scale
protests, some of which have been violently repressed. Part of the
background to this is a result of the 2015 election. Since the
resumption of civilian rule in 1999 part of the Igbo elite have been
involved in ruling the country as a junior partner to the northern Hausa
elite. While this was somewhat undermined during Jonathan’s rule, as he
was an Ijaw from the South-South, it still continued. But now the Igbo
elite are somewhat marginalised as the current administration is an
uneasy alliance between part of the Hausa elite and the Yoruba one. The
speed at which these largescale protests have erupted shows the issue of
Biafra did not disappear with the end of the civil war in 1970.

While supporting the right of self-determination the CWI in Nigeria does
not, at his time, call for separation. In the past, CWI in Nigeria has
argued for the convocation of a democratically elected sovereign
national conference composed of elected representatives of the working
and oppressed classes to discuss the political and economic future of
the country. This includes the question of the basis and manner of
relationships between the various nationalities and the attendant right
to self-determination. Currently it calls for united struggle across the
country and also for the working class and poor to democratically decide
what would be the shape of a workers’ and poor peoples’ Nigeria. But it
stands opposed to nationalities being forcibly held within the present
boundaries of Nigeria. However this is linked, particularly in a country
like Nigeria with around 250 nationalities and ethnicities, with
socialists defending the full rights for all minorities within any new
state and for close relations between workers and poor in both the new
and old states.

At same time it argues that capitalist independence is not a solution to
poverty and oppression, as the examples of Eritrea and South Sudan have
recently shown. The key to real liberation and self-determination is
breaking with capitalism and, on that basis, working to extend the
revolution to other countries in order to create a confederation of
states run by the workers and poo r that can co-operate in building a
socialist future.

Since the foundation of the CWI in Nigeria over 30 years ago a central
call has been for the building of a working peoples’ party. There have
been many steps towards and away from this, ranging from the short-lived
Nigerian Labour Party in 1989, the comrades work in the National
Conscience Party between 1994 and 2007, the repeated, but short-lived,
attempts to work within the Labour Party (LP) after 2007 and the 2012
decision to launch the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) as a rallying
point and a party able to present an alternative to the pro-capitalist
parties. Although it is still not clear whether the SPN will be allowed
to stand in elections, it is increasingly unlikely that the trade union
leaders will succeed in their so far half-hearted attempt to take
control of the LP from the bourgeois careerists currently running it.
While it cannot be absolutely ruled out that the trade union leaders are
able to take control of the LP, it is more likely that in the coming
period a left opposition to the Buhari government will develop through a
combination of experience, struggle and the work of socialists and trade
union activists.

Conclusion

The CWI has already a proud political record in Africa based upon a
clear programme and honest analysis of the situation combined with a
principled, active approach towards building serious revolutionary
forces. It has shown that it can simultaneously strive to help build a
politically independent workers’ movement while, at the same time,
working with other forces on concrete issues. While so far these have
been generally small steps, the activities of our South African comrades
after Marikana and the repeated involvement of our Nigerian comrades in
struggle are examples that can and must be built upon in order to help
create the forces that can end capitalist exploitation and backwardness
in Africa.